Heavenly Insights: Exploration of the Afterlife through Matthew 22 | Matthew 22:23-33

The following resource is brought to you by Real Life Community Church in Richmond, Kentucky.

We hope you're both challenged and encouraged by this message from Pastor Chris May.

Matthew 22, beginning in verse 23.

The Word of God says that the Sadducees came to Jesus who say that there's no resurrection.

They asked him a question.

Saying Teacher Moses said if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

Now, there were seven brothers among us.

The first married and died and, having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.

So to the second and the third, down to the seventh, and after them, all the woman died.

In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be?

For they all had her, but Jesus answered them you were wrong because you neither you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God?

I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

He is not God of the dead but of the living.

When the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

It's the Word of the Lord and you may be seated.

You know, throughout the ages, humans have been consumed with the mystery of what happens after death.

We're so concerned with life after death, and in rightly so.

The Bible says that God has written eternity on our hearts, ecclesiastes, chapter three.

There's a fear of the unknown.

Thinking about what comes after this life helps us cope with grief and the loss of a loved one, and so it's understandable, for these reasons and many more, that we are so concerned with what comes next.

In our English Bibles, the word heaven is translated hundreds of times.

But you know what, even though it mentions heaven so many times, the Bible really leaves us with a lot of questions that are unanswered, doesn't it?

In regards to heaven?

And consequently, here's what many Christians do they look to extra biblical sources to find out about what's to come, this supposed of experience in heaven after having a near-death experience.

The book sold over six million copies in a very short time and was turned into a feature-length film.

And then, interestingly, just recently, like last month, sometime in October I believe there's a new documentary that came out in theaters, called After Death.

Did anybody see that?

It was released in over 2,000 theaters.

That made $5.1 million on opening weekend.

Now I would just say I'm a bit skeptical of the stories, especially when those who give the testimonies profit greatly from them.

And I say that because do you remember?

In the book of 2 Corinthians I believe it's chapter 12, paul writes about an experience he had 14 years earlier where God allowed him to visit what's called paradise or the third heaven, that's, god's space.

So third heaven is not some like you know higher stage in heaven that if you're really good you get to.

The first heaven would be what we see, you know, kind of the sky where the birds fly.

The second heaven you know in ancient culture would be you know space essentially.

And then the third heaven was simply where God resides.

And so Paul is about what heaven will be like.

I'll tell you why because we couldn't comprehend it.

Our English vocabulary could not do it justice, and so we just have to trust that what the Bible does say about heaven is enough.

The holy scriptures, hear me, they've given us all that we need to know about heaven in every other truth in the Bible.

Well, if the mystery of what comes next, the life to come, intrigues you, I've got really good news for you today.

We actually have some information about that life in our text today.

So let me just remind you where we've been in the book of Matthew.

So in our journey, we are now in the last week of Jesus' life.

Like Matthew spent several chapters talking about this last week of Jesus' earthly ministry that will culminate in his crucifixion.

Now, you're right.

Remember, over the last few weeks we've learned that Israel's leaders have been attempting to destroy him.

Remember, jesus charged the temple and confronted the leaders and said listen, you, you are turning God's house of prayer, the temple, into a den of rebels.

That's quite a charge, and the temple leaders don't like it.

So they they say and so, through the text, here's what we're going to see.

We're going to see Jesus again outsmart even the wisest of people.

Can I just tell you as a side note, you can't outsmart God.

He's God.

You're not like, don't try and tell him the way he should run the world.

His ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts above our thoughts.

So we're going to see today that Jesus against outsmarts and silences his enemies.

But we'll also be reminded, through his answer, of the glories that await us, and oh, I hope that we can just revel in those glories today.

Three points Are you surprised?

Here?

It is Number one, the Sadducees rationale.

Number two, the Savior's rebuke.

And number three, the shocking reality, the Sadducees rationale, the Savior's rebuke and the shocking reality.

Are you ready?

Smile at me, all right.

Number one, the Sadducees rationale.

Well, to best understand this passage and what's happening here, it's kind of obscure to us We've got to understand some historical context and particularly who the Sadducees are.

So who were the Sadducees in the first century?

Well, in Jesus' time they were an elite group of religious and quite political leaders.

They had quite a bit of clout and they yielded a great deal of power in Jerusalem.

Now, they were not a large group, but they had money.

And how many know the money?

People sometimes control things.

Tim Mackey, I love this.

He compares the Sadducees to the Church of Scientology and he said you know the Church of Scientology?

We consider it a cult.

It's not a big religion, but it's influential nonetheless, and here's why there's a lot of celebrities like Tom Cruise, I think, john Travolta, many others who are part of the Church of Scientology.

Did you know that?

This is hilarious?

They actually had at one time had a written program called Project Celebrity in the Church of Scientology Seriously Like.

This is real.

And the program promised a reward to Scientologists who recruited certain targeted celebrities.

Imagine today if I said, listen, you go and you recruit Taylor Swift, right?

Actually, don't do that.

And you know Brad Pitt, whoever, tom Cruise, and if you get them in the doors you win a prize.

But they went after celebrities and money.

People and the Sadducees were much like that and they were all about money and politics.

They wanted power.

What did they believe?

Well, look at verse 23.

It says that this group, the Sadducees, came to Jesus and Matthew points out that they say there is no resurrection Now.

The Sadducees believed only in the first five books of the New Testament, called the Torah, that they did not accept the full Hebrew canon.

They said listen, it's only.

It's only the first five books of the Bible that are divinely inspired.

But more than that, the Sadducees were extremely prideful and self-sufficient, like God.

We've got this, so much so that they believe that God in the.

You know, as far as his involvement in the world was, he was very hands off, let's say Like we run our own lives, we make our own things happen, good or bad.

That's what they believe.

They had the power.

They did not believe in the supernatural.

They believed.

They did not believe in miracles.

Listen, they rejected the idea of angels and demons.

They did not believe in the afterlife and, most significant to our texts, they rejected the belief of the future resurrection of God's people.

So what do they ask Jesus within that context?

They confront Jesus with this very strange hypothetical story In an attempt.

Their attempt is this to make Jesus look foolish, to make the doctrine of the resurrection look foolish.

And so look at verses 24 through 28 again and you're going to be like what does this mean?

So they say listen, moses said they're quoting Moses.

If a man dies and has no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.

Now there were seven brothers among us.

The first died and, having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.

So then the second and third, down to the seventh.

Same thing For them all.

After them all, the woman died.

And they asked so, jesus, within that hypothetical story in the resurrection, there's going to be great confusion Whose wife will she be?

Her first husband, her second?

Now I want to get us in the Christmas spirit today.

By the way, didn't Christy and her team do wonderful in decorating that awesome?

But I want to illustrate this point with a lighthearted example about our understanding about the events following the birth of Jesus.

That narrative.

I'm going to mess you up this morning, you ready?

There's three misconceptions that I want to point out.

There's many more, by the way, but for time's sake I'll point out three.

Number one there's a misconception that there was a star above the manger on the night of Jesus' birth.

Have you ever seen a nativity scene without a star right over top?

The Bible doesn't give any indication that there was a star above the manger that night.

In Luke 2, the angels did not tell the shepherds to look for a star.

They're told to look for something else.

Let me just read you Luke 2.12 in case you don't believe me, and this will be a sign for you that the angels are speaking to the shepherds you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger the star.

The Christmas story talks about a star, but listen, it was not given to the shepherds.

Who was it given to?

Yeah, the Magi, the wise man, and that's seen in Matthew 2,2.

And we always put the wise men like in the nativity scene with Jesus being an infant.

But the Magi did not visit Jesus on the night of his birth.

It was sometimes later, we don't know how long, but there was a gap of time in between their visit.

And here's how we know that Herod decrees before they go, herod decrees that all male babies to another under be murdered.

In his attempt to do away with Jesus, he didn't say just go, just go find babies who were three months and under.

He said two years old, and under which tells us that Jesus was likely, you know, one year old or more.

You know he was under two, but I mean we don't know how many months he had aged before the wise men came.

So there you go, no star above the manger.

Second misconception is this insistence that there were three wise men.

The Bible knower says that there were three wise men that came to Jesus.

It simply tells us in Matthew, two, one, that wise men came from the east to Jerusalem.

The reason that we insist on there being three wise men is because the text mentions three gifts gold, frankincense and myrrh.

But that does not necessarily mean that there were only three wise men.

If you ever gone in on a gift together with someone, or if you had somebody shown up to Christmas and go, I didn't know we were supposed to be bring gifts.

You know you had a wise man.

Be like he's wise.

He's like you know.

Oh, I didn't know we were supposed to bring something.

So there there there are likely were more than three wise men.

There's one more popular misconception I'll point out, and that was that Jesus was born in a stable.

I'm really messy up with this one.

Do you know?

The Bible never claims that Jesus was born in a barn.

I asked my kids that when they have bad manners, you know, were you born in a barn?

But the Bible never suggests that Jesus was born in a barn.

That assumption has come about because Luke two seven says that Mary laid him in a what?

In a manger.

So we think manger barn.

Well, scholars tell us that in Jesus day it was actually common for a manger to be kept in the main room of a village house for particular animals.

They were often kept these animals a short distance away from the main room in.

It was an adjacent room to the main living space, and so scholars tell us that it is highly probable that Mary gave birth to Jesus in one of Joseph's relatives house in Bethlehem, but it's very probable that the guest quarters were really tight and there wasn't really room to give birth to Jesus.

So it's likely that Mary and Joseph went into the main family room and there would be a stable and that is where they laid Jesus.

And, by the way, it's very unlikely that Jesus was born on December 25th, very unlikely that he was born in December at all.

Did I mess you up?

All right, don't, don't let your mind wander thinking about those things.

You know the rest of the, the rest of the service.

That's a fun, lighthearted example.

But but you know there's a lot more serious issues that we believe, things we believe about God that that are not scriptural.

You know there are parts of the Bible, things about God that are hard for us to swallow and rather than just, you know, believe what the Bible says, we go.

That can't be right.

God can't be like that and we come up with these ideas that are not based upon scripture.

Years ago, I gently point out a passage of scripture, several scriptures in fact, to a man in our church who held to what I believe is is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of end times, and I showed him in scripture hey, look at these texts very clear that in my mind that this doctrine was wrong that he held to.

You know what he said to me.

He didn't say oh, you know what?

Let me pray over those scriptures, let me go study them.

You know what he said.

It's what I've always believed and I'm not changing my mind.

Have you ever been there?

You see something in scripture, but you go.

That's not what I was taught, not.

We must ensure that our thoughts about God and all the things of God come not their own thoughts, but they are informed by the scriptures.

Are you with me?

So the first charge that Jesus brings against the Sadducees is that they do not know the scriptures.

The second is you don't know the power of God.

Jesus knows that God is able to raise the dead.

He knows of the future resurrection.

He mentions it in verse 30 and also in verse 31.

But but you know what Jesus knows that God will do more than resurrect the dead.

If you go back, I'll read this for you.

For time's sake, you can look at it later.

But in Matthew 19, 28, 19, 28,.

Jesus says truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will sit on the twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel In the last day, what Jesus is saying?

He's not just going to raise the debt, but he's going to renew the earth.

So I'm going to point out another common misconception here, and if you've been under my ministry for any time, you know this is a doctor, not championed, so much You're going to get tired of hearing this.

We have been taught our entire lives that the goal of the Christian life is to get where, where To heaven.

And is heaven a real place?

Absolutely, is it a wonderful place.

Absolutely it's paradise.

Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and he says that's far better.

But that's not the ultimate goal.

The ultimate goal is not for us to get to heaven, but it is for heaven to come to earth.

We're going to spend eternity as part of the new world.

God's creation will be renewed and perfected.

Romans eight.

Paul says that in the last days creation itself will be released from bondage.

And then you just simply go to the, to the end of the Bible.

You go to the end of the Bible and you get the end of the story, and that, and it's not revelation 21 and 22.

It's not about us going up to heaven.

It's about heaven coming to earth and God space in our space overlapping is going to be wonderful.

God, this is the point.

God is powerful enough, yes, to raise the dead, but also to recreate, to create, recreate the earth and everything in the universe.

With a word.

He says Sadducees.

Jesus says to the Sadducees listen, you know why you're off, you know what Well, you get things about God wrong.

Number one you don't know the scriptures.

And another number two you don't know his power.

You have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof is, paul said.

So there it is.

That's, that's the rebuke that Jesus brings.

And second, or thirdly, finally, let's look at the shocking reality, and we're going to talk about eternity.

Here.

Jesus responds to the Sadducees hypothetical story about the woman who had seven husbands.

And now you know what's she going to do in the resurrection?

Look at verse 30.

This is his response.

This is his answer, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they're like the angels in heaven.

This is a shocking statement from any of us.

Now Jesus does not say that we will become angels.

That is not in the Bible.

I don't know where that doctrine came from.

You're not going to grow wings one day.

All right, people pass and God just needed another angel.

We're not going to become angels.

Those are created beings, we're created beings.

But that is a shocking reality for many of us.

When you hear those words that there will be no marriage in heaven, no marriage on the new earth, some of you like, if this is, you, don't let your spouse onto this, these feelings.

But some of you are like, thank God, you know.

But in all seriousness, many of you, you are blissfully married.

You can let your spouse know that and you think I cannot imagine a joyous place without my spouse being in that intimate relationship with him or her.

Anybody thought about that?

Does that bother anybody?

That thoughts cross my mind.

I adore my wife.

You know, outside of my relationship with God, she is the treasure of my life.

I love doing life with her.

She went to the women's retreat last week and I was mad at Carol for taking away, taking her away for three days.

I can't stand to be without her and I think about eternity and I think, man, it's going to be weird, it's going to be difficult.

I'm not going to be married to my wife.

Have your attention.

It's hard for us to grasp a place of joy, unspeakable joy, where there's not marriage.

Let me try to help us navigate this.

Bring back to when we were children.

We could not imagine that anything would bring us more joy than a Christmas gift, that new toy, candy.

Some of you still don't think there's anything better than skittles or whatever.

There's nothing better.

You play outside with your friends.

You're thinking, man, nothing could be greater than this.

You can't imagine life as an adult.

You look at adults and you're like, yeah, gosh, what a boring life.

You can't imagine anything greater than playing with your toys.

I never played with toys, so on and so forth.

But as we age, what happened?

We realized that there are greater glories, greater joys that exist that are infinitely better than those toys we used to love so much, one of those being marriage.

As children, young boys think man, girls are gross, they have cooties and all that.

But then one day they get into their teenage years and they're like man, it's all I care about is getting a girlfriend, right.

But you know what?

As adults now we see the joys of this life like marriage and we in our current state have no category to comprehend a life without like.

We can't even think that there would be a place, a time that exists where there is a greater joy than the joys that we love now.

And you think I couldn't be happy without this.

But we're like children in that sense that we just don't yet know the glories that await us.

So it's a shocking reality to hear that there's no marriage in life after death.

But there's a greater shocking reality and that is this that the life to come is so much better, so much better.

Jesus says to the Sadducees you don't know the power of God, and he says God is the God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob.

And you know what that tells me.

I don't know what the future.

You know what the new earth, the new heavens and the new earth.

I don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but I'll tell you this it's certainly not going to be less than this earth, because we serve a God of power and I want you to think about this in this life.

We love marriage because there are a lot of.

There are a lot of untrustworthy people in the world.

We have trouble having intimate relationships with many people.

It's tough to open up and be vulnerable with people.

So what we do out of between 7 and 8 billion people on the planet.

What we do is we grab one person and we say, hey, you're not perfect, I'm not perfect, but I choose you.

You are the person that I'm going to be vulnerable with.

You're the person I'm going to open up to, you're the person I'm going to trust my life with.

And so when we think of the future, that's a great blessing to have, but we think of a future life without that we go, oh, what's it going to be like?

Well, let me tell you why.

That's probably not going to be an issue for you, because all sin will be done away with, all the brokenness in relationships will be done away with.

And so, listen to me, every single person who is in Christ and part of the new earth you are going to have not a sexual, but an intimate relationship with.

Imagine this you can open up and you can talk to everybody in your neighborhood and in every country, and you know they're never going to hurt you.

You can trust them because sin has been eradicated.

But more than that, the reason we don't need marriage is because there will have been a marriage that's already taken place.

The Bible tells us that we, as a church, collectively, are the bride and Jesus is the groom, and we are waiting for the marriage supper of the lamb.

We're looking for the day when the bride and groom will be united.

We will be married to Christ.

God is going to make his dwelling place with us.

We'll be there with Father, Son, holy Spirit.

I don't think I mean just think about this.

I don't believe that any of us are going to be saying, well, I really wish I was married.

No, the life to come has choice beyond what you could ever ever imagine.

So there it is.

I think we should grapple with what happens after death.

What is the life to come?

But the most important question is not hey, what will we be doing?

The most important question is this will I spend eternity there?

Because there's this popular misconception.

I've even heard, quote unquote Christians talk like this.

They say well, all roads lead to heaven.

This is my way, that's their way.

But all roads lead to heaven.

There's a case so that we could inherit paradise and that beautiful.

He died the death due to us, so that you and I could live in the way into that kingdom.

The way to be sure of eternal life is to repent, which means to turn from your sin, to get off the throne of your own life and say Jesus, I believe in you and I profess you as Lord and I will follow you all the days of my life.

Jesus, peter and Acts 2 preached a dynamite message.

All these Jewish people in the audience, the Bible says, were cut to the heart and they said what do we do?

Acts 2.38, peter says repent and be baptized for the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And if you've not done that, can I plead with you today, this be the day of salvation, but those of us who are saved, this is what I'll leave us with.

This world is tough, isn't it?

And there are joys now in the Lord that we experience.

But can we just revel in the glories to come?

I can't answer all your questions about what it's going to be like, because the Bible doesn't answer all your questions.

But I'll tell you this it's going to be better than what you'll read in the book Heaven is for Real, or 90 Days in Heaven or the movie After Death.

Don't let those things, those mediums, dumb down what it's going to be like, because you, as Paul said, the glories that await us are inexpressible.

Stand with me.

Do you long for that day, father in Heaven?

Oh, how we love you.

You tell us in your word that we are too long or love.

You're appearing Into the book of Revelation.

The cry is even so, come quickly.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that those who are in Christ, who have gone before us, that they are right now with you in Heaven, in your space in paradise.

But, oh, lord, we thank you that, even beyond that, we have the hope of resurrected bodies, perfected, no longer prone to sin and sickness and death.

Lord, we have hope of Heaven coming to earth, new creation, a new and better Eden where you dwell with us in your perfect creation, one that's not subjected to natural disasters, not plagued by corrosion.

When we've been there 10,000 years, bright, shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing your praise than when we first begun.

Let us meditate on that today, in Jesus' good name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.

If you'd like to know more about how you can have a relationship with Jesus Christ, or if you have questions about our church, you can email us at info at myrealchurchorg.

Real Life Community Church is located at 335 Glendon Avenue in Richmond, Kentucky.

We invite you to join us for worship Sunday at 10.45 am or Wednesday at 7 pm.

Visit us online at myrealchurchorg.